Understanding the what, how, where of EU cohesion policy with categorisation data
(2014-2020)
1. What are we talking about? How is it useful?
to establish a "nomenclature" for the categorisation of financial data, in order to ensure reliable and comparable monitoring data on the use of the Funds
- How much is invested in SMEs? Research? Energy? Tourism? Climate action? Education? And many other themes?
- What forms of finance and used? Grants? Equity? Loans?
- What about the territorial spread of investments across cities? or rural areas?
2. Programme documents contain "ex-ante" information on planned use of EU resources
- Intervention field: what actions, sectors are being financed? (123 codes)
- Form of finance: how is it being financed? Grants, loans, equity? (7 codes)
- Territory: is it in an urban, rural, other area? (7 codes)
- Territorial Delivery mechanism: is a specific local, community led or integrated delivery mechanism planned? (7 codes)
- ESF secondary theme: Is there a specific secondary theme targeted by ESF support? (8 codes)
... allowing us to compare changes in planned amounts over time (reprogramming)
Over the 10 year period of the programmes (2014-2020 + 3 year closure period) the investment focus of the programmes may be modified when justified. Modifications frequently involve realloactions of the planned investments to adapt to changing demands, socio-economic needs or strategic priorities. Using the annualised "planned vs implemented" data set you can compare changes in planned amounts year on year. This is highly detailed.
3. Annual reporting of financial data brings implementation data covering all dimensions
The annual reporting includes information on the 5 dimension in the programmes and on three additional dimensions:
- Location Dimension: this involved NUTS3 or NUTS2 codes for the geographic location of the projects selected;
- Economic dimension: this provides information on simplified NACE industrial and services sectors, particularly useful in understanding the sectoral nature of research, innovation or business support, when reported (24 codes);
- Thematic objective dimension: only for the ERDF and Cohesion Fund (12 codes).
... allowing us to combining categorisation data on "planned" and "implemented values"
A specific dataset contains data to allow comparison between the latest planned amounts and the data reported annually on the implementation of the investment finances. This dataset is in time series and, using the year filter, shows the progress over time in selection of project (projects decided following selection procedures) and the expenditure by those projects (spending = expenditure declared to the programme). The chart below shows the EU aggregate picture for the 4 intervention field codes dealing with high speed broadband. The filters allow users to see progress over time and to change the fund, intervention field codes and countries.
4. What analysis is the categorisation system used for?
Climate tracking story
Biodiversity tracking story
Tracking Air Quality investments
Support to digitisation can be explored
Health investment
Investment by territory type
Tracking the use of Financial Instruments
Interactive sankey charts on intervention fields
5. Cross analysing different dimension !!
- What economic sectors (economic dimension) are benefiting from investments in RTDI (Intervention fields);
- What forms of support (forms of finance) are used to support SMEs? (Intervention fields);
- What actions (intervention fields) are financed under integrated territorial instruments (terrritiorial delivery mechanism).
6. Data resources and more reading:
- 2014-20 Planned data set (API enabled) with metadata and charts
- 2014-20 Planned vs Implemented data set (API enabled) with metadata and charts
6.1 Period 2014-2020
- The categorisation system (with 8 dimensions) was set out in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 215/2014 and was supported by this EGESIF Guidance Note
- List of NUTS-3 regions (2010) with indication of specific territory status used by DG REGIO (mountain, island and sparsely populated NUTS 3 regions)
- The territorial dimension is based mainly on the List of NUTS-3 regions (2010) by urban/rural typology as defined by EUROSTAT. The urban/rural typology methodology is available on the site. This data story (TBF) explains the territorial dimension and provides a graphical guide to the data.
- Correspondence between 2007-2013 and 2014-2020 "priority themes" and "Intervention field" codes
- Find more #ESIFOpenData stories here.
6.2 Period 2007-2013
- The 2007-2013 categorisation system (with 5 dimensions) was set out in COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 1828/2006 -and was supported by this Information Note and this Frequently Asked Questions (2012 version)
- Planned allocations by Categorisation dimensions and codes from adopted programme decisions at end 2008 and end 2015 : Data set
- Allocations to Categorisation dimensions and codes reported in the 2007-2013 Final reports : Data set
6.3 Period 2007-2006 and before
- A more basic, single dimension "categorisation system" was in force for programmes with ERDF/ESF funding in the period 2000-2006. That system fell into disuse after a simplification initiative in 2003-2004. It is therefore considered that the initial data collected is not a reliable guide to the thematic investments that finally took place.
- For 2000-2006 and periods before 2000 systematic thematic data is not available. The data available was published in evaluation of the periods concerned.